----- Original Message -----
From: <jearondeau(a)aol.com>
To: <INCLAY-L(a)rootsweb.com>
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2006 11:24 AM
Subject: [INCLAY] Coal Mines in Clay County
I am looking for information and pictures/drawings of the cold mine
shaft
sunk by John Andrew, William Campbell, James Kennedy and David Thomas in
1854. This is for a research paper for the Indianapolis Scottish Society.
Any information or assistance will be appreciated.
----------------------------
Hello Jean,
Good luck with your research. I did correspond with you a couple of years
ago, and I'd be interested to know what you find out about
that shaft. I have fragments of 3 old letters handed down to me by my Dad.
His grandfather's sister, Catherine Humphrey,
married John Kennedy (you wrongly call him James) in 1850 in Kilmarnock,
Ayrshire, and in 1852 they emigrated
to Ohio then Indiana. Two of these letters were written back to his
mother-in-law in Scotland by John Kennedy. The other was
written a bit later by his young daughter Mary. They seem to date from
about 1854, 1862 and 1868. They do make some small mention of
his coal-digging exploits, so I hope they're of some interest.
Letter #1
son John sends his likness to
Gran Mother we have had a very
coald winter many a one has been frozen to
death in this state we had 4 hens frozen
to death we have 16 hens and tow Rosters
yet Kathy says that I am
like an old farmar now she says
you would not me know theirs
is so much heir about my fase
I can tell you that I was the
better of it these cold days
their is very few shaves their and
Beard in this County William
Campbel has not
I not shave this long time Katy
and Marion says that if we do not
shave soon the will not sleep
with us I am going to hunt
for coal on my place Soon
I think I can find it
[According to the 'Brazil Daily Times' of 20th November 1910 - Obituary for
John Kennedy's widow Catherine Humphrey:
"Her husband was a pioneer coal operator of Brazil. He lived on the road
which is now South Meridian street at the spot now occupied by
the Smith hotel, and at the rear of the house operated a coal mine. At that
time Meridian was a country lane through a dense woods,
with a rail fence on either side of the road"
[As William Travis pointed out in his History of Clay County, methods and
equipment were unsophisticated,
and involved a major expenditure of hours, muscle and sweat:
"The work of excavating this shaft was all done by hand power, after the
manner of digging a well, and the coal hoisted by horse power."
[By the way William Campbell and John Kennedy were brothers-in-law. In the
1860
US census for Dick Johnson township, Clay County, the Kennedy household is
literally next door to the Campbells. William Campbell, born Kilmarnock,
was married
John's sister, the Marion mentioned in the letter. And John's older brother
Thomas, also
a miner, was lodging with the Campbells at that time.
[Travis's 1884 'History of Clay County' has a biographical sketch of
Campbell:
"WILLIAM CAMPBELL was born in Scotland in 1825, and is one of a family of
eleven children of John and Mary (Magill) Campbell. William came to this
country with his wife
and two children in the year 1851. He was in Ohio a short time, then moved
to Clay County,
thence to Virginia, thence to Ohio again, then to Clay County again, where
he engaged in the coal business. He assisted in sinking the first
shaft out of which block coal was taken. He followed the coal business
until about the year 1877, when he took charge of his farm, and has
since been looking after his farming interests. He has a beautiful home on
a farm of 166 acres, well- improved and stocked. In his boyhood,
before emigrating to this country, Mr. Campbell had the advantages of only
three years schooling, but by close application he has qualified
himself for a first-class business man. When he opened his first coal mine,
he could only sell four car loads a week, and accepted as pay for it
pork, beans, coffee, sugar, etc. Now thousands of tons of coal are sold
monthly for cash. Within three-fourths of a mile of Brazil there is the
"Campbell shaft," named in honor of Mr.Campbell. The shaft is sunk on land
formerly owned by him. He was married in 1847 to Marion
Kennedy, a native of Scotland. Eleven children have been born to them --
John, Thomas, George, Allen, William, Marion, Marian, Mary,
Agnes, Jeannette and Willie."
[John Kennedy eventually died 2nd September 1892, aged 65, still in Dick
Johnson township, where he owned 79 acres. By that time he had
retired as a miner and devoted himself to farming.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Letter #2
[The following undated note was in the same handwriting, John Kennedy's]
forgive me when I tell you
that we live in a forgetful
country I am happy to inform
you that we are all well
hopeing that thease few lines
will find you all enjoying
the same Blessing is the cencere
desire of your son and Daughter
Dear Mother I have no doubt
but you will have heard
about the troubles of our Country
a great many of our fellow
beings is hurred from time into
eternity and a great many
of them seas hard times we
have great reason to be thankful
that we have seen no hard time yet
and I have planted a good many
Apples trees Peaches trees Cherries
trees Plumb trees and Pears trees and
some greaps vines fruit is the about
the half of the living in this
Country their was one dewelling
house one stable and and a
smock house that is a house
to smock our meat in it will
be hard for you to belive me
when I tell you that it takes
from 7 to 10 hogs to do a man
and his Wife and family one year
the use all the fat to Bake
Pies and short Bread and caks
their was a well on the please
the house was not one of the best But ...
[John's reference to his property - "their was one dewelling house one
stable and and a smock house ... the house was not one of the best But.." -
indicated that they had moved into a farmstead that was already cleared and
built.
[The "troubles" to which he referred - "you will have heard about the
troubles of our Country a great many of our fellow beings is hurred from
time into eternity" - were the Civil War, which dates the note to about
1862. He noted that "we have great reason to be thankful that we have
seen no hard time yet"; Indiana, solidly on the Union side, escaped direct
depradation, but suffered serious casualties among its soldiers, and
considerable economic hardship.
[There is no evidence that John Kennedy was mustered or enlisted in the
Union army. But a Thomas Kennedy from Clay County did enlist as
a private in the 35th Indiana Regiment, B Company, in December 1861, and
this
was almost certainly John's brother. Recent immigrants did enrol
in the Union Army. Thomas was recorded 'missing in action' after the
Union defeat at Chickamauga, Georgia 20th Sept 1863, and John's brother did
disappear
from local records. John's remark that "we have great reason to be
thankful" must date his letter to the early part of the war, before any
inkling of his brother's death trickled back to Clay.
[John Henry Kennedy, Thomas's son, also enlisted in the Union army in
October 1864, aged 17 years and 7 months, serving with the 21st Indiana
Regiment in Texas. He survived the war and remained in San Saba County,
Texas for several years afterwards, where he married and had four
daughters. When his first wife died in 1880, he remarried and returned to
Indiana as a coalminer, and ten years later was elected
Secretary-Treasurer of District 11 (Terre Haute) of the newly formed United
Mineworkers Union. He died on April 7th 1907.
------------------------------------------
Letter #3
This is written on a lined sheet of paper folded to make four sides - maybe
it was torn from a small school notebook.
The front page is very faded. It was written by Mary (12-year-old daughter
of John Kennedy & Catherine Humphrey)
to both Janet Humphrey (her young aunt) and Mary Humphrey (her grandmother)
in Kilmarnock. Internal evidence
dates it to early 1868.
Janet Humphrey
Dear aunt janet I will
rite you a fiew lines to
let you know that We are
all Well at present
thank god for his kindness
to us all father is digging
coal and my brother john is With
him and my brother james
with the horses holling coal
I will tell you that We
have got a new barn up
We have got to cows and I
milk them for my mother
and We have got three
little calfs the Winter has
been very cold so far
I must tell you that
it is snowing here now
We have got thirteen sheep
We have got ten piggs
We have got fore ducks
and one turkey We have got
three doosen of hens
I must tell you how the
markets rates the flour is
thirteen dollars A barl
the sugar is Worth 15 to 20
cents per pound and tea is
from [..] to [..] dollars and 40 cents
per pound and coffee from 25
to 20 cense and butter is 40
cense per pound and egs is
30 cense per dosen and potatos
to dollars A bushels
and apples one dollar A buslee
I and marrian and my sister
sarah is at schol now and it
Will soon be out and this
is the first letter I rote
and if you can make it
out I hope it Will not
be the last
Dear granmother my mothe
often thinks of you
you must not blame
my mother for you
know that she cant
rite I Will answer all
of your letters I am
going to get my
photograph and send it
to you and my mother
never let you know enny
thing about my little
sister and she was born
last may the twenty
ninth and I hope you
will excuse her and her
name is Katie jennet
my brother Thomas ses
he would like to see his
gramma but he ses he is
A fraid to come across
the sea
I must tell you how
mother spent her
newyear she went to a
turkey rost to one of
our neighbors and they
was snow on the ground
then and father hitched
up his horses to his
sleigh and tok mother
in it and the children
my mother had mind
of all yous at home
Dear Aunt you must
excuse my riting
and I must close my
letter good by Aunt
rite to me and
let me know how you are
direct it to Mary W
Kennedy
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Mary Kennedy was born in America, in Ohio in 1855, according to the 1860
Clay County census. She had never met her aunt Janet, who probably wrote to
her when confined to bed
with the illness - "Consumption & Pulmonary Abcess" - from which she died
in Kilmarnock
on 22nd January 1868, at the age of 23. This letter back to her must have
arrived posthumously.
Mary died quite young, probably before 1880, and certainly by the time of
the 1900 Census,
[Mary's oldest brother John would have been about 16, and no doubt worked in
the mineshaft established at the back of their landholding:
"father is digging coal and my brother john is With him". A collier all his
life, John Jr. died, unmarried, on 2nd October 1921 in Dick Johnson
township.
[Mary reported that her other older brother James - aged 14 - was "holling"
coal with horses. He had begun digging block coal at the age of 11,
and was a lifelong miner, first for coal, then for clay. He married Martha
Horahan in 1881, had five children, and died in Dick Johnson township on
11thAug 1937
Best wishes
John Humphrey (Toronto, Ontario)